Telephone-support.



C. J. LANDIN.

TELEPHONE SUPPORT.

APPLIOATION FILED JUNE 10, 1914.

Patented Dec. 1, 1914,

IhvenIor Carl J. Lcmdin,

WiThesses.

y a d 0 im Afiys UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CARL J. LANDIN, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO UNIVERSALAPPLIANCE COMPANY, 015 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS; A CORYOBATION OFMASSACHUSETTS.

TELEPHONE-SUPPORT.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 1, 1914.

Application filed June 10, 1914. Serial 0. 844,346.

T 0 all whom it ma concern:

Be it known tliat I, CARL J. LANDIN, a citizen of the United States,residing at Boston, county of Suffolk, State of Massachusetts, haveinvented an Improvement in Telephone-Supports, of which the followingdescription, in connection with the accompanying drawing, is aspecification, like characters on the drawing representing like parts.

This invention relates to a support capable of sustaining a telephone orother object and has for its object to provide a novel device of thisnature which is simple and ineozpensive to manufacture; which can beapplied to any article of furniture, to a wall, or to a floor, and whichwill permit the telephone instrument or other article supported therebyto be moved up and down, in and out and laterally in either direction,or in any combination of these three directions, and which willauton'iatically hold the telephone instrument counterbalanced in anyposition in which it is left.

In order to give a proper understanding of my invention I haveillustrated in the drawing a selected embodiment thereof which is in thenature of a telephone sunport and which will now be described, afterwhich the novel features will be pointed out in the claims.

Figure 1 of the drawing is a side elevation showing a device embodyingmyinvention; Fig. 2 is an enlarged section on the line wx, Fig. 1.

My improved device comprises a supporting standard, a supporting armcapable of supporting a telephone or other article but which ishereinafter referred to as a telephone-supporting arm inasmuch as theillustrated embodiment of the invention is a telephone support, meansfor connecting said arm to said standard at two different points, one ofsaid connections being capable of moving horizontally or out-and-m, andthe other being capable of moving vertically only, and a counterbalanemgmemher acting on said telephone-supporting arm and adapted tocounterbalance it in any position. In the preferred embodiment of myinvention the connection between the telephone-supporting arm and thesupporting standard is constituted by two parallel links pivoted to saidarm and connected together, the lower end of one of wh1ch links isconnected to the supporting standard so as to move out and in while thelower end of the other link is connected to said standard to move up anddown. This combination of parts provides a device which ermits thetelephone instrument sustaine on the telephone-supporting arm to bemoved in and out, or up and down, or laterally, or in a direction whichcombines two or more of the above motions, thus making the device onewhich is useful in its action and by which the telephone can besupported in any desired posltion. In the illustrated embodiment of myinvention the supportin standard is shown at l and it is sustaine in abracket 2 that is fixed to a support 3 which may be a desk, wall or anyother device. The standard 1 is mounted for turning movement in thebracket 2 and is made so that it can be readily removed from thebracket. As herein shown, the lower end of said standard is looselyreceived in a bore in the bracket and said standard is provided with acollar =1 which rests on the bracket and which holds it in verticalposition.

The telephone-supporting member is shown in the form of an arm 15 to theend of which the telephone instrument 17 is secured in any suitable way,a clamp 16 being herein provided for that purpose, which clamp isswiveled to the end of the supporting member 15 by a universal jointconnection 18. Pivoted to the supporting member 15 at 19 and 20 are twoparallel links 11 and 12, said links being connected at their lower endsby a link 13. The link 11 is connected to the supporting standard 1 insuch a way as to permit the lower end of said link to move up and downonly relative to the standard, while the other link 12 is connected atits lower end to the standard in such a way as to permit said lower endto move out and in only. While any suitable connection between the linksand the standard to permit the vertical movement of one link and the outand in movement of the other link may be provided, I have herein shownfor this purpose two sleeves 7 and 8, the sleeve 7 being pivotallyconnected to the link 11 and slidable vertically on the supportingstandard 1,-while the sleeve 8 is pivotally connected to the lower endof the link 12 and is mounted for lateral or out and in movement on thestandard. This is herein provided for by forming the standard with thelaterally-extending arm 5 on which the sleeve 8 is slidably mounted, andthis armis shown as being formed by bending the upper end of thestandard 1 laterally, as shown at (3 and then bending the end of theportion 6 backwardly on itself to present the laterally-extending arm 5.

The sleeve 7 has connected thereto a counterbalancing member hereinshown in the form of a spring 21 which encircles the standard 1 and isconnected at its upper end to said sleeve and at its lower end'to thestandard, as shown at 22.

With the construction as thus above described, it is possible to movethe telephone up or down in a substantially vertical plane or to movethe telephone in or out horizontally or right and left, or to combineall of these motions and yet have the telephone automatically held andmaintained in any position in which it is left. The full lines in Fig. 1show the telephone raised and out of the way. The telephone may bebrought down into convenient position for use in a substantiallyvertical direction by simply drawing downwardly on the telephoneinstrument, this operation swinging the supporting member 15 about thepoint 20 as a pivot and drawing the sleeve 7 upwardly on the telephoneinstrument, which operation.

results in causing the sleeve 8 to slide outwardly on the arm 5 at thesame time that the sleeve 7 slides upwardly on the stand 1. The tensionof the spring 21 counterbalances the weight of the telephone even whenthe parts are in the position shown by the dot and dash lines and willthus maintain the parts in this position. While the telephone is in theposition shown by the dot and dash lines Fig. 1, it may be pushed backwithout raising it, this operation resulting in swinging the parallellinks 11 and 12 into their vertical position and the sleeve 8 along thearm 5 into the full line position. Furthermore because of the fact thatthe standard 1 is swiveled in the bracket 2 it is possible to swing thetelephone instrument into any position to the right or the left of thatshown in the drawings.

The link 11 is shown as provided with a projection 25 which is adaptedto engage the link 12 and thus limit the backward swinging movement ofthe telephone. Both links In this case the link 12 constim res 11 and 12may be forked at their lower ends so that when they are moved forwardlyinto the dot and dash line view Fig. 1 the two arms of each link willstraddle the part 6 of the stand. Said part 6 thus'constitutes a guidefor the links and serves to maintain them in proper relative position.

In order to maintain the telephone in strument in proper balance whenthe receiver is removed from its hook and its weight is thus taken offfrom the telephonesupporting arm 15, I have provided a friction deviceassociated with the link 11 and which applies suflicient frictionalpressure to the supporting standard to counteract or offset the weightof the telephone receiver. In the illustrated embodiment of my inventionthis friction device is in the form of a spring-pressed friction block23 which occupies a recess in the sleeve 7 and is yieldingly heldagainst the standard 1. The spring 241- which acts on the block 23 willhave such a tensionthat the friction of the block against the standardwill be sufhcient to counteract the weight of the telephone receiver'sothat when the telephone instrument is relieved of the weight of thereceiver the position of the supporting arm .as maintained by thecounterbalancing spring will remain unchanged.

It will be noted from the above that my device comprehends atelephone-supporting arm which is pivotally connected at two points withthe supporting-standard, one of said connections having a capacity formovement out and in while the other of said connections has a capacityfor vertical movement only, together with a counterbalancing meansacting on said arm to hold the telephone in any position in which it maybeplaced. Moreover, the device herein illustrated is very. simple inconstruction and can be inexpensively manufactured.

While I have illustrated a preferred embodiment of the invention I donot wish to be limited to the constructional details shown. It will alsobe obvious that the construction herein illustrated is capable ofsupporting other articles than telephones and while I have referred tothe member 15 as a telephone-supporting member, I desire to state that Ihave used this term as illustrative and not as defining any limitationas to the use of the device. Hence I do not wish to be limited to theuse of the device for supporting telephones.

Having fully described my invention,

tion with a supporting standard, of a telephone-supporting member, twoparallel connected links both pivotall connected to said .telephonesupporting member, a pivotal sliding connection between the lower end offor one link each link and the supporting standard, one of saidconnections permitting a vertical sliding movement and the other anin-andout movement, and counterbalancing means acting on one of saidlinks.

2. In a telephone support, the combination with a supporting standard,of a telephone-supporting member, two parallel connected links bothpivotally connected to said telephone supporting member, means movablyconnecting the lower end of each link to said supporting standard, theconnection for one link permitting movement thereof in a verticaldirection and the connection for the other link permitting movementthereof in a lateral direction, and counterbalancing means acting on oneof said links.

3. In a telephone support, the combination with a supporting standard,of a telephone-supporting member, two parallel connected links bothpivotally connected to said telephone supporting member, means movablyconnecting the lower end of each link to said supporting standard, theconnection ermitting movement thereof in a vertical direction and theconnection for the other link permitting movement thereof in a lateraldirection, and counter-balancing means acting on the vertically movablelink.

4. In a telephone support, the combination with a standard having alaterallyextending arm, of a telephone-supporting member, two parallellinks, both pivotally connected to said telephonesu p rung member, meansconnecting one lin to the laterally-extending arm to permit said link tomove longitudinally of the arm and means connecting the other link tothe standard to permit it to move vertically thereon, a connectionbetween said links, and counterbalancing means acting on the latterlink.

5. In a telephone support the combination with a standard having alaterally-extending arm, of a sleeve slidable vertically on thestandard, another sleeve slidable laterally on said arm, atelephone-supporting member and parallel links both pivotally connectedto said supportin member and one pivoted to each 0 said s eeves.

6. In a telephone support the combination with a standard havin alaterally-extending arm, of a sleeve idable vertically on the standard,another sleeve slidable laterally on said arm, a telephone-supportingmember, parallel links both pivotally connected to said supportin memberand one pivoted to each of said eeves, and a counterbalancing deviceconnected to one of said sleeves and acting to counterbalance the weightof a telephone in any position thereof.

7 In a telephone support in combination with a standard having at itsupper end a laterally-extending arm, of a sleeve slidably mounted onsaid standard, means to provide frictional engagement between the sleeveand standard, a tele hone-sup orting memher, two parallel lin s pivotedto said supporting member one of said links being pivoted to saidsleeve, and a pivotal slidin connection between the other link and sailaterally-extending arm.

8. In a support, the combination with a supporting standard having avertically and a horizontally-extending guiding portion, of a guidingmember movable on each guiding portion, and a supporting arm pivotallyconnected to each guiding member, and counterbalancing means acting onsaid arm.

In testimony whereof, I have signed my name to this specification in thepresence of two subscribing witnesses.

CARL J. LANDIN.

Witnesses:

LoUIs C. SMITH, THOMAS J. DRUMMOND.

